Armor vs. Health

I have an elementalist, and a monk. I understand that some builds may have armor with a certain type of resistance for specific things, but in general what is better to use health insignias/runes, or to use insignias/runes that add to armor?

Thanks in advance.

In general armor is better than health, especially on a monk when you can run disciples insignia.
Eles don't have quite such an easy armor option, so survivor with a good shield set.

PvE
Health>Armor
Don't flam me, there is a lot of degen in PvE.

In PvE, armor is better than health, at least in the amounts competing for the same mod slot (weapon suffix, insignias). The idea is to pick whichever most increases the amount of raw damage it takes to kill you.

In PvP, health is better than armor, since intelligent foes know how to use significant amounts of armor-ignoring damage.

in 98% of situations, Armor > Health, damage mitigation is always top priority. If you suffer from degen then hex and condition removal is more important on your healer's bar.

I would disagree, since not all damage will be armor ignoring, and mitigating damage even 50% of the time is better than having lower defense 100% of the time.

pve = whatever you want

pvp= armor is better

in pve it doesnt matter because lolpve.

in pvp, take +armor as it will make your monks ele, unless your prof has no good +armor insigs. (eles using aura of restro should take blessed)

Rock whatever you like in PvE, cause, well, it's PvE. xD

In PvP, I prefer armor over health, although your hp does need to be at a respectable level. Like, high enough to survive a dshot from pro ghostly skillz in HA, for example

QFT , Health , at least on HM , wont save you but having more armor and some damage mitigation saves lives. Degen is less dangerous than 150+ damage crits from melees and so on imo.

Thanks for the help all. Seems most people agree on armor more. I play mostly pve, have only done a little pvp, and that is in alliance battles which I am told are not really pvp. =)

If anyone has some nice setups they have discovered over time, please let me know and I would be interested in trying them out.

S/He was referring to PvP. I agree 100% that armor is pretty much always better in PvE.

Although I think armor is better in both pve and pvp, I would run health in pve

PvE, health. Depending on the farm you're doing.

PvP, armor... untill you're DP'd to about 30%

The thing with health is that it doesn't help you unless you dip below the amount of +health. For example you choose Survivor insignia (+35 health) instead of Brawlers (+10 armor on each piece). Every time you get hit by armor affected damage, the Brawlers insignia will be reducing damage. Unless you get down to below 35 health, the Survivors insignia might as well not have been there.

more health also causes prot spirit to reduce less dmg

PvP prots use Spirit Bond nowadays for pvp. As for heath and armor, I would say have at least 600 hp to give monks a chance to catch the spikes. As for armor, shield sets pretty much cover everything and I always use a defense mod for spear instead of 30 hp.

i - usually - play pve with ~520 health and typical caster armor with no additions and no shield (so pure 60) and i'm fine with everything :3

more health might be more versatile. with higher health, you can take - let's say - 5 more hits from any source, in any part of the body, and you can survive more degen. with higher armor, you can survive 5 more hits taken by specific enemy/on specific part of the body/under specific conditions. it extends in the hm thought, as damage mitigation is useful there - let's you survive 7 more hits, but it's often conditional.

high armor sets are used for specific areas/roles, such as farming with terratank, while high health sets are a general pve solution.

Thats actually very easy to determine.

On this im going to use something called Effective Health, which basicly calculates health based on damage.
Say on a 60 damage attack you take 60 damage, then you lose 60 hp.
Now if that 60 damage attack only takes 40 damage, then you lose 40 hp.

This can be formed into saying that on 120hp taking the full damage (60hp) you'll have 120hp, but on 120hp taking the lowered damage (40hp) it will have the same effect as having 180 health on the full damage (60hp).
So, the increased armor gives you an effective health of 180 which allows comparing to a full hp setup.


First, lets examine the hp ammounts.
Lvl 20 character - 480hp.
Full health insignia/sup vigor - 90hp
weapon/shield or weapon/icon - 60hp

Total hp on general pvp char - 630hp

Armor is easy, 60AL on casters means taking 100% damage.


So, on 60 AL you need to take 630/100%*100 or 630 EH


If you use armor insignia's:
Lvl 20 character - 480hp.
Full sup vigor - 50hp
weapon/shield or weapon/icon - 60hp

Total hp on general pvp char - 590hp

Base armor - 60 AL
Armor insignia - 10 AL

So 70AL armor, meaning 84% damage taken.

So on 70AL, you need to take 590/84*100 or 700 EH.


However, most start of using a shield for AL and energy hiding;

HP setup;
Health remains same (630hp)
60+16 = 76 AL (76% damage taken)
630/76*100 = 829 EH

Armor setup:
Health remains same (590 hp)
70+16= 86 AL (64% damage taken)
590/64*100 = 921 EH

Like this you can try out just about any combination you like. Just determine your armor and health, then use Armor Rating (click!) to determine the percentage damage taken.
For example on 70 AL (or +10 in your case) it reads 0.8409 or 84.09% dame taken compared to normal.



NOTES TO REMEMBER!!
- Do note that armor only applies to regular attacks.. no degen or lifestealing or the like which is very commonly used in pvp.
- Also note that armor doesnt change on DP while health does, meaning your EH goes down faster per death making it easier to kill you again on an armor setup compared to full health.
- Also note most mobs determine their target based on hp, whichever has the lowest hp gets attacked first unless they are 'convinced' otherwise due to bodyblocking or kiting.


Generally its these last notes that made most people go full hp setting, and switch their weapon/shield/offhand to the required +AL for the fight or just go +hp against armor ignoring attacks.


Thats why the more dedicated pvp-ers got certain setups such as f.ex. 16 AL shield +10 vs lightning and a weapon with +7 vs elemental to switch to when facing RTL ele's. And then the same on +10vs fire/water/earth/slashing/piercing/... as well as +5 al vs all and +7 vs physical and the regular +30hp on weapon/shield.

Allows the greatest protection against damage while keeping the best setup for armor ignoring damage as well as pve play.

As you can see, there is a basic disagreement about this topic. I basically prefer health over armor because armor doesn't protect against degen, but the bottom line seems to be that it's 6 of one and a half dozen of the other. Go with whichever feels right to you - you won't really suffer either way.

I prefer health, cause if you start dying, ye'll be sorry. Also playing as a Monk, 600 healthworth's warning is much more useful than mini protection vs. ele nukers.

That said armor is basically the only defense vs ele nukers. It can be quite problematic if you don't have SY!. Sometimes +24 armor doesn't cut it.

This. Both armor and health have uses that are better than the other, it just depends on what you are doing. Find what works for you, and use that. There really isn't a best option for ALL things, so unless you plan to change regularly, find what works for you the most.